“I Can’t (Don’t) Breathe”: White Veterans and Twenty-First-Century Culture Wars

The surprise cinematic blockbuster of summer 2016 was Don’t Breathe (Fede Álvarez, a low-budget horror film whose protagonist is a blind, white Gulf War veteran who single-handedly defends his home against three youths seeking to steal his savings. The film was so successful that five years later it spawned a sequel, Don’t Breathe 2 (Rodo Sayagues 2021) in which the veteran fights members of a brutal gang who invade his home and kidnap the girl he calls his daughter. Both Don’t Breathe films take place in Detroit—the only US city larger than 500,000 that has an African American population above 70 percent. And yet, African Americans are largely missing from both films. Moreover, the white-veteran protagonist aligns with the conclusions in Joseph Darda’s book, How White Men Won the Culture Wars: A History of Veteran America (2021), which argues that US Vietnam veterans not only became symbols of white masculinity that felt threatened and aggrieved by the culture wars of the late twentieth century, but also ultimately proved triumphant in those wars. Because the two Don’t Breathe films together grossed more than $120 million in US box-office revenue, their themes and messages seem to resonate strongly with audiences around the country.